This study examined California Community Colleges' administrator decisions about online proctoring software during the COVID-19 global pandemic between March 2020 and June 2022. Understanding how decisions were made, by whom, what information was considered, and how information was evaluated can support more informed decision making regarding…

The studies in this dissertation were conducted to better understand how to measure students' use of multiple representations in introductory science courses by expanding the possibilities of a variable representation assessment (VRA). The VRA is a computer-based assessment originally designed to measure general chemistry students' use of…

Vocabulary researchers have started expanding their assessment toolbox by incorporating timed tasks and psycholinguistic instruments (e.g., priming tasks) to gain insights into lexical development (e.g., Elgort, 2011; Godfroid, 2020b; Nakata & Elgort, 2020; Vandenberghe et al., 2021). These timed sensitive and implicit word measures differ…

There is a lack of knowledge in whether there is a difference in results for students on paper and pencil high stakes assessments and computer-based high stakes assessments when considering race and/or free and reduced lunch status. The purpose of this study was to add new knowledge to this field of study by determining whether there is a…

Speaking performance tests typically employ raters to produce scores; accordingly, variability in raters' scoring decisions has important consequences for test reliability and validity. One such source of variability is the rater's level of expertise in scoring. Therefore, it is important to understand how raters' performance is influenced by…

This dissertation includes three essays: one essay focuses on the effect of teacher preparation programs on teacher knowledge while the other two focus on test-takers' response times on test items. Essay One addresses the problem of how opportunities to learn in teacher preparation programs influence future elementary mathematics teachers'…

While research into the role of semantic structure in the recognition of written and spoken words has grown, it has not looked specifically at the role of conversational context on the recognition of isolated words. This study was a corpus-based and behavioral exploration of a new semantic variable--sociality--and used on-line behavioral testing…